"Together, we are setting a goal of making New Hampshire the first state in the nation where all of our health care providers are able to prescribe medication electronically -- an innovation that will improve health care quality and help save lives, while at the same time reducing health care costs and improving the efficiency of our healthcare system," Lynch said.
The plan calls for all primary care providers to have the ability to prescribe prescriptions electronically by October 2007 and for all health care clinicians in New Hampshire to have the ability to e-prescribe by October 2008.
"This is an aggressive goal, but one I believe we will meet because the people who can make it happen - the New Hampshire Hospital Association, the New Hampshire Medical Society, New Hampshire's Pharmacists and New Hampshire's major insurers - have all joined together through the Citizens Health Initiative to develop and endorse this plan," Gov. Lynch said.
In July, the Institute of Medicine released a study estimating that problems with the prescription drug system -- uncertainty about what the doctor prescribed, an inappropriate medication for the patient, wrong dosages or just the wrong drug -- cost the health care system $77 billion a year nationally. If looked at on a per-capita basis that could mean up to $300 million a year in costs in New Hampshire -- for new prescriptions, repeat doctor visits, lost time at doctors' offices and pharmacies, and in hospital admissions because of adverse drug reactions. It also estimates that 7,000 patients nationally die each year as the result of adverse drug reactions. And 1.4 percent of hospital admissions every year are the result of adverse drug reactions.
To address these serious issues, the Institute of Medicine recommended health care providers move to sending prescriptions electronically, which allows easier checks of appropriate drugs, doses drug interactions, decreases confusion about what the written prescription says, and saves doctors, pharmacists, and patients time and money. National studies indicate that the use of e-prescribing saves pharmacies and doctors' offices up to two hours a day.
